Mining
cmonforton | November 11, 2016I’m not easily shocked to learn about injustice against workers. But my jaw hit the floor in fall 2013 when I read Chris Hamby’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning series on the lengths to which coal companies go to dispute that miners have coal-dust related lung disease (a.k.a. black lung.) My jaw hit the floor a second time when Hamby (then with the Center for Public Integrity) exposed that Johns Hopkins University and its employee Dr. Paul Wheeler where star players on the coal operators’ teams.
The families of Steve Day, 67, and Junior McCoy Barr, 79, have now filed a lawsuit against the…
kkrisberg | November 8, 2016At The New York Times, Dan Barry reports on the Hispanic hotel workers who are becoming a powerful political force in Las Vegas. In particular, the story focuses on the 56,000-member Culinary Union, whose membership is more than half Hispanic. The story is told through the eyes of Celia Vargas, 57, a guest room attendant at a hotel along the famous Vegas Strip — Barry writes:
Despite their name tags, guest room attendants are anonymous. They go unnoticed by many as they push their 300-pound carts to the next room, and the next.
A glimpse of what is expected of these attendants can be found at…
kkrisberg | October 26, 2016Charles Ornstein at ProPublica and Mike Hixenbaugh at the Virginian-Pilot investigate the man known as Dr. Orange for his “fervent” defense against claims that exposures to Agent Orange sickened American veterans. A part of their long-running investigation “Reliving Agent Orange,” this most recent article reports that the Veterans Administration has repeatedly cited Dr. Orange’s (real name: Alvin Young) work to deny compensation to veterans, even though many argue Young’s work is compromised by inaccuracies, inconsistencies and omissions. In addition, the very chemical companies that make…
kkrisberg | October 11, 2016At the Denver Post, John Ingold and Monte Whaley authored a year-long investigative series into the dangerous conditions facing Colorado’s oil and gas workers, the role of subcontracting in heightening worker safety risks, and the lack of employer accountability and oversight. The series, “Drilling through danger,” noted that 1,333 workers died in the nation’s oil and gas fields between 2003 and 2014, with 2014 being the second-most lethal year for oil and gas workers in Colorado in a decade. According to the newspaper’s analysis, there was about one oil and gas worker death per every 12 rigs…
cmonforton | August 12, 2016It wasn’t the first time an industry made wild exaggerations about a proposed safety regulation, but one made by the coal industry in 2011 was a doozy. Now five years later, we have the data to show how big a doozy it really was.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration had proposed a new regulations to protect coal miners from black lung disease. The coal industry insisted that many of the nation's 1,500 coal mines would not be able to comply with a rule that would reduce cut in half the allowable concentrations of respirable coal dust in the miners' work environment.
Alliance Coal's vice…
kkrisberg | July 12, 2016Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, with more than 600 workers dying in fatal workplace incidents between 2004 and the beginning of July. And many more miners die long after they’ve left the mines from occupational illnesses such as black lung disease, while others live with the debilitating aftermath of workplace injuries. Today, researchers know a great deal about the health risks miners face on the job, but some pretty big gaps remain.
Kristin Yeoman and her colleagues at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) hope to begin closing that knowledge…
kkrisberg | June 21, 2016At Reveal, Will Evans investigates how lobbyists for the temporary staffing industry squashed a legislative effort in Illinois to reform the industry’s widespread discriminatory hiring practices. Evans has previously reported on how the temp industry discriminates against workers of color, particularly black workers, using code words, symbols and gestures to illegally hire workers according to sex, race and age.
In Illinois, the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative developed legislation to confront such hiring practices. Illinois Senate Bill 47 would have required temp agencies to track the race…
cmonforton | June 8, 2016When you retire, would you spend the time and the gas to drive 70 miles several times a week to your former worksite to ensure the company is following the law? The Huffington Post’s Dave Jamieson profiles a 62-year old Kentucky coal miner who does exactly that.
Flip Wilson worked as a coal miner for 40 years. He told Jamieson that over his career he didn’t know much about his safety rights and didn’t question unsafe practices. Jamieson writes:
“He obeyed the unspoken rule of every mine he worked in: The coal must flow, or you must go.”
Two years ago, Wilson was diagnosed with black lung…
kkrisberg | June 7, 2016At Reveal, Jennifer LaFleur writes about the U.S. veterans who witnessed the country’s many nuclear weapon tests, the health problems they’ve encountered in the decades since their service, and their fight for compensation. One of the “atomic veterans” LeFleur interviewed — Wayne Brooks — said: “We were used as guinea pigs – every one of us. They didn’t tell us what it was gonna do to us. They didn’t tell us that we were gonna have problems later on in life with cancers and multiple cancers.” LaFleur writes:
All of the atomic vets were sworn to secrecy. Until the secrecy was lifted decades…
kkrisberg | April 12, 2016At Reveal, Christina Jewett investigates the gaping holes in California’s workers’ compensation system that make it so vulnerable to fraud and leave workers in the dark about the bogus care being charged in their names. She begins the article comparing the workers’ comp system to Medicare:
When Medicare makes rules, it has a strong incentive to encourage doctors, pharmacists and others to follow them: money.
The purse strings are not held nearly as tightly in California’s workers’ compensation system, in which a division of power creates the first major hurdle.
Lawmakers make rules. The state…
cmonforton | April 6, 2016It’s been six years and one day since 29 men were killed by a coal-dust explosion at former Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine (UBB). Today, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sentenced the company’s former CEO Don Blankenship for his practices that contributed to the disaster. Berger order him to serve one year in jail and pay a $250,000 penalty.
Early this morning, the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reported
“…a crowd was already beginning to gather at the Robert C. Byrd U.S. Courthouse in Charleston. More than a dozen family members of the Upper Big Branch miners staked out seats when…
kkrisberg | February 16, 2016At In These Times, reporter Joseph Sorrentino writes about the heartbreaking plight of uranium miners and millers as well as the history of uranium mining oversight and regulation. He spent a week interviewing uranium workers and their families in New Mexico — workers who are among the thousands who began working in the mines after 1971 and who don’t qualify for federal compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Sorrentino writes:
Cipriano Lucero worked in uranium mills from 1977 to 1982. He has pulmonary fibrosis, and one of his kidneys failed when he was 48,…
cmonforton | January 26, 2016A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) regulation which is designed to better protect coal miners from developing black lung disease. The MSHA regulation was issued in April 2014, and shortly thereafter, the National Mining Association, Murray Energy, and others filed a lawsuit against it. The judges' opinion was published yesterday. (Thanks to Evan B. Smith at Devil in the Dust for alerting me to the decision.)
The industry asked the Court of Appeals to review a long list of legal arguments against the…
kkrisberg | January 19, 2016At Reveal, reporter Will Evans investigates discrimination within temporary staffing agencies, finding a pattern of racial, sexist and otherwise discriminatory hiring practices. He begins his story with Alabama-based Automation Personnel Services Inc., writing:
When its clients wanted to hire temp workers based on race, sex or age, Automation was happy to oblige, according to dozens of former employees.
Often, the practice was blatant. A manager at a Georgia manufacturing plant asked Christie Ragland not to send him “any black thugs,” she said. Ragland, a former Automation office manager…
cmonforton | January 7, 2016**Update below (1/30/2016)
A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.
The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of…
lborkowski | December 31, 2015During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on July 27, 2015:
by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.
For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship…
cmonforton | December 4, 2015The criminal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship concluded this week with jurors finding him guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety standards. Blankenship's Upper Big Branch coal mine was the scene of the worst US mine disaster in 40 years when 29 men were killed in a massive coal dust explosion on April 5, 2010.
US Attorney Booth Goodwin---who managed the team of investigators and lawyers who brought the successful case---said:
“The evidence overwhelmingly showed an enterprise that embraced safety crimes as a business strategy. It was reprehensible, and the jury saw it for…
cmonforton | November 27, 2015The criminal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is in its eighth week. Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette continues to provide updates from the courtroom, but far fewer now that most of the action is behind closed doors where the jury is deliberating.
Ward explains that Blankenship’s attorneys have yet again asked “the judge to declare the jurors deadlocked and order a mistrial.” Judge Irene Berger disagreed. Ward writes:
“Noting that the trial was lengthy and involved complicated charges, Berger said that the jury’s deliberation time to date was not unreasonable. ‘I think…
cmonforton | November 20, 2015The criminal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship went into its seventh week. The jurors listened to the prosecution’s 27th (and final witness) and heard the defense team rest its case. Thanks to the reporting from the federal courthouse in Charleston, WV by Ken Ward Jr. and Joel Ebert of the Charleston Gazette, I can share some of my favorite quotes from the week.
The week started with a bang when Blankenship’s lead defense attorney--without calling a single witnesses--- announced: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defense rests.”
Ward talked with legal scholars to shed…
cmonforton | November 13, 2015The criminal trial of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship went into its sixth week. Jurors heard from a financial expert and an FBI special agent. Thanks to the reporting from the federal courthouse by Ken Ward Jr. and Joel Ebert of the Charleston Gazette, I can share some of my favorite quotes from the week.
The prosecution called Frank Torchio, an expert at analyzing changes in stock prices in response to favorable and unfavorable public information. Torchio examined Massey Energy’s financial performance, in particular, following the April 5, 2010 disaster at the company’s Upper Big…